Having spent their first night together, Franco and nurse Elizabeth Webber decide to make it official, regardless of what everyone else thinks.

Michael Corinthos and Hayden Barnes find themselves in the unfortunate position of having to cut 30% of the hospital staff to keep General Hospital in sound financial shape. The nurses catch wind of the impending cuts, and decide to hold a nurses’ strike, putting the relationship between recently discovered sisters Elizabeth and Hayden into further complication.

Hayden’s beau, Doctor Hamilton Finn, is secretly struggling. He had spent years on the drug Zekonestral to treat a deadly disease called Blackwood Syndrome. Miraculously Finn discovered a cure for the illness, but years of medication has left Finn with an addiction to opiates. He’d conned fellow doctor Griffin Munro into writing him a prescription of pain killer, which Lab Tech Brad Cooper caught on to and is now using the information of Finn’s opiate struggles to leverage his claim in deserving partial credit (and profit) for assisting in the discovery of the cure. Brad is nearly caught by his husband Doctor Lucas Jones, who fears Brad is returning to his scheming ways.

Lucas’s mother, Bobbie Spencer is suspicious of new-comer to town Nelle Hayes. Bobbie had arranged for Felicia Scorpio to work on her behalf to find out what Nelle is up to. Felicia visits Nelle’s apartment, offering her skills as an interior designer. She sneaks around as much as she can, but finds little more than a fancy bra. Little does she know that Nelle had already staged a scene to lead Sonny to think he’d drunkenly and regretfully slept with her, and has been dropping clues to an affair between herself and Sonny for others to find. Sonny’s wife Carly, for whom Nelle is a personal assistant, calls her over, giving Nelle the opportunity to stuff the fancy bra in the back of Sonny Corinthos’s bed, another planted clue to insinuate an non-existent affair. Nelle’s strange plot is to wreak revenge on Carly for a reason that is thus far unspecified.

Sonny is still under house arrest for the suspected involvement of a carbomb meant for rival mobster Julian Jerome, but which instead tragically killed Sonny’s own son Morgan. Vowing to discover the true culprit who planted the bomb, Jason Morgan and Curtis Ashford work to get the answers he needs. Jason and Curtis stake out a Chinese herb shop, convinced that Julian and his female cohort are doing business inside. Window blinds and shrubbery block their view, and music obscures most of the conversation they record with a directional mic, but what is audible is Julian telling a blonde woman that he was tired of threats and bombs in his car, and was tired of fearing his own sister. Curtis assumes that means Ava Jerome, but Jason doesn’t think it all adds up.

Little did they know that Julian was in fact speaking to his long thought dead sister Olivia Jerome, who has been the extortionous mastermind behind much of Julian’s behavior, most recently orchestrating a buy out of General Hospital to turn into luxury condos.

Though Jason decides to wait on telling Sonny about what would seem to be evidence pointing to Ava, Sonny feels he’s holding back, and accesses everything Jason and Curtis recorded that was automatically saved wirelessly. Hearing what he thinks is a conversation between Julian and Ava, Sonny gets his tech-saavy friend Brick to remove his ankle bracelet, and heads to Ava’s art gallery where he confronts her with a gun. Sonny is on the verge of shooting Ava when Jason arrives just in time to talk him into leaving before Sonny’s detective son Dante Falconeri arrives. Dante arrives to find only Jason and Ava. Ava says that Sonny had just been there threatening her, but Jason claims she is lying, and gives Dante a copy of the recording of Julian and his “sister” talking. Utterly baffled, Ava is brought back to the police station with Dante.

Police Commissioner Jordan is surprisingly visited by the only witness in the carbomb case able to clear Sonny of suspicion. Jordan thanks Curtis for his efforts, but the conversation goes awry. Doctor Andre Maddox arrives as Curtis is leaving, is told about their shared kiss, and decides that he and Jordan should break up.

Olivia Jerome, meanwhile is cozying up to Julian’s ex-wife Alexis, masquerading as an Alcoholics Anonymous member and taking the role of Alexis’s sponsor. Olivia, known to Alexis only as “Liv”, mines Alexis for information about her family so that Olivia can continue to coerce Julian into doing her bidding by threatening Julian’s loves ones.

Alexis has been consulting for Dante Falconeri and his wife Lulu in an upcoming case. They will be fighting for custody of Lulu’s surprise surrogated child, Charlotte, away from Valentin Cassadine, Charlotte’s father. Alexis warns Lulu against any continued surprise contact with Charlotte after her last unfortunate encounter. However, Lulu is summoned by her best friend Maxie Jones, who is babysitting Charlotte for her boss Nina Reeves. Charlotte screams at yells when she sees Lulu, not having forgiven her for claiming to be her real mother. At that moment, Nina returns to her office to hear her stepdaughter upset. She demands Lulu leave, and then fires Maxie.